Dark Moon Ch. 01

Joshua Stillwater stood at his bedroom window watching the activities below in his mother's garden.

It was the annual Stillwater festival where all members of the Stillwater clan celebrated the summer and coming autumn. Joshua smiled as his best friend, Marcus, was accosted by single females each inspecting him, physically grabbing hold of his buns and tugging at his dark hair. Marcus took it all in good favour and even dared to laugh as one possessive woman palmed of his crotch.

Joshua sighed, moving away from the window. A strange melancholy took hold of him without reason or prompting, a feeling of suffocation that had taken occupancy in his chest for some time now. He didn't know why or even how to get rid of it.

Buttoning the shirt his mother had laid out for him, Joshua turned to the mirror above his chest of drawers. Ash blonde hair laid ramrod straight past his ears brushing against his shoulders, his icy blue eyes stared belligerently at his reflection, hating what he saw. As always he changed his Alpha like posture into one of submission, hunching low and lowering his head so that he looked as small as possible.

Naomi, his mother, hated it when he did that and maybe that's why he did it, since it was the only thing in his life he could control. Picking up his worn, purple band, he tied his hair into a messy ponytail. He stared at the black shades on the dresser, normally he would wear them since disturbed the other pack members but he decided that there was only so much rebellion his mother could take.

Joshua Stillwater was a shifter, as were the people congregating in Naomi's garden for the festival. Shifters were subspecies of Homo Sapiens, differing from their human cousins due to a small piece of their DNA that had altered as they evolved over millions of years.

This defective strain gave them the ability to shift into whatever animal they were partial to. There were, Canidae comprising of wolves, foxes, jackals and coyotes, Panthera who could shift into lions, leopards, jaguars and tigers, and finally Ursidae the bears. Three animal clans scattered all over the world.

The Stillwater clan were wolves, and most of the packs members were Native American, although some had bred outside of their clan. Joshua Stillwater was in fact half Native American and half something else, a something else that his mother refused to tell him.

Joshua didn't really care nor did he allow himself to care, he could never leave the pack for family was everything to them. The Stillwater pack kept to themselves, chiselling a small community in the wilds of north America, miles from any town and becoming a self efficient community.

Stillwater children attended the local school, had jobs that further bettered the pack and later mated into other families. Only rarely did they allow other shifters into their clan and if they did they had to be wolf and they had to be male. The Stillwater clan was a matriarchal society, their identities inherited from their mothers.

Joshua walked into the kitchen watching as his uncle and male cousins prepared food for the barbeque, they worked in an easy comradeship which Joshua envied. He had always been an awkward boy and that awkwardness had stayed with him into maturity. He smiled to himself as Paul, the eldest of his cousins, picked at the food on the platters, his large stomach quivering as he laughed at something his father said. Uncle Remus was beginning to bald and his scalp shone beneath the light bulb.

Joshua cleared his throat, remembering from an earlier experience, that it was better to make his presence known instead of gaily springing up on them. A scar ran down his chest were his cousin Simon had struck him, thinking he was an assailant.

"Joshua we were wondering where you were." Remus said.

Joshua smiled politely, both of them knew it wasn't true and any shifter in their vicinity could smell the stench of his lie like something putrid but Joshua just smiled.

"Your mother was looking for you." Paul said, handing Joshua a plate of rare meat that oozed as he bit into it. With a large grin he applauded their efforts.

"This is so good." He moaned taking another bite.

"I knew you'd like it." Paul laughed.

Paul was the only one out of his family who truly accepted Joshua and for that Joshua was grateful. He knew that his family didn't hate him but there was a void where love and affection should be, he had never had never bothered to decipher why and put it down to his different appearance.

Joshua left the group and entered the garden, enjoying the smell of summer. The air was filled with the scent of grass and flowers, the lilac bush he had planted a few years back grew untamed just how he wanted it and he thanked his mother for humouring him. Walking towards the bush he ran his fingers over the delicate flowers laughing as the bees flew hastily towards him. Knowing that their sting would be more fatal to them than him he stepped away quickly, bumping into Marie his friend from when he was a pup.

...

Marie steadied Joshua, hiding a smile behind her glass of wine as he blushed hastily pulling away from her. He was always so jumpy around the females, and she found his mannerisms as endearing as the other bitches found it irritating.

They were far too impatient when it came to Joshua but what neither of them realised including Joshua, was that he was every bit the Alpha he was born to be. Marie licked her lips with excitement, the full moon was only four weeks away which meant that hormones were high and any unmated wolves could mate with whomever they wanted.

Mating during a full moon proclaimed to the world that two wolves were in love and would give their love, protection and desire to the one they chose as their mate.

Nothing could come between mated wolves except death, when that happened widowed wolves followed soon after. Marie hid another smile behind her glass as Joshua walked away, she couldn't wait to sink her teeth into him.

...

Joshua didn't dare turn around to see if Marie was still trapped in her fantasy world, it scared him at times when she looked at him as if he were her prey.

It meant only one thing, Marie was ready to mate with him. He could smell it in the air each time he encountered her, it pounded against his senses with unrelenting force until he almost choked.

Joshua knew that his time as a bachelor was coming to end, although he had never experienced bachelorism like the females of his clan who were free to be as promiscuous as they wanted to be.

Unmated males weren't allowed to be with a female unsupervised and any male caught fornicating with a female was publicly shamed and became an outcast.

It had been that way with his cousin Paul who had been found kissing a she-wolf named Shawna. The wolf was known nationwide for how wide she could spread her legs. Paul was close to thirty and still unmated which practically made him a spinster.

Though Joshua didn't want to end up alone, some days he wondered if being a eunuch was as bad as everyone made it out to be.

Seeing Marcus with Letia made Joshua laugh himself out of his sombre mood, the two were so in love it was almost sickly, they stood in a corner whispering softly to one another as Marcus's grandmother sat close by, her head tilted to onside so she could hear the content of their conversation.

"Joshua." Marcus called as Letia squeezed his hand before walking away her hips swaying with each step she took, Marcus's eyes followed the swing of her hips, his eyes bouncing in their sockets.

"Behave! That is not the behaviour of a male." His grandmother hissed.

Marcus rolled his eyes as his grandmother turned to converse with someone else.

"Just stand stone faced and ignore the fact that the bitch smells like sex." He said shrilly, in a poor imitating Lola.

Joshua shook his head over his friends antics as they grabbed some food to eat. Finding a clear spot of grass at the back of the garden they sat down, Marcus stretching his long legs in front of him, rotating his feet in time with the soft music that drifted through the air.

Joshua sat cross legged with the plate balancing on his lap, picking at the steak and ignoring the small heap of vegetables his Uncle had vainly produced in his attempt to get the shifters to eat greens.

"Saw you and Marie earlier. You know she's ready to gobble you up when she gets the chance." Marcus said squeezing ketchup onto his meat. Joshua groaned as he remembered that embarrassing encounter.

"Recently she doesn't even say anything, she just smiles at me and licks her lips, sending wafts of that damn scent." Joshua said glaring daggers at Marcus as he rolled on the floor in fits of laughter.

"Quick Lola's coming." Joshua hissed, Marcus abruptly stopped laughing looking left and right, growling as he noticed that Joshua was joking.

Joshua grunted as Marcus collided into him both tussling on the floor.

"Marcus Holt what on earth are you doing!" Lola yelled grabbing hold of her grandson. Naomi Stillwater stood with her arms firmly crossed against her chest, her head held high.

Long silky black hair grew down to her hips with wild bird feathers were braided into three plaits. She had striking amber eyes like all the wolves in Stillwater that contrasted with her dark Native American skin.

She was beautiful even in her mid age and many wolves strove to prove to her that they could be a loving companion, but Naomi preferred solitude giving all her love and affection to her only child and son.

Even now as she watched Joshua's best friend being reprimanded by his grandmother she sensed Joshua's anger towards those who had interrupted their play.

Naomi knew he wanted her to interfere and she would if he just asked but Joshua was proud, a trait most Stillwater males lacked. Even without his father, he had still been influenced by him.

"Mother we were only playing." Joshua said, getting up from his place in the grass.

"I'm so sorry Alpha it won,t happen again." Lola bowed several times dragging a protesting Marcus.

"Come now Lola. Marcus and Joshua have been friends for many years, if anyone is permitted to rough house with Joshua it is he." Naomi said.

Joshua knew that his mother would give in to him, she always did. If there was one thing Naomi wasn't lacking, it was love and at times he was as content as any child could be, but unlike most of his peers Joshua was bubble wrapped to the point were the only person he was completely comfortable conversing with was Marcus.

Even his mother made him itch in his skin. There was a dark side to Naomi's love and the evidence of her affections were forever branded upon him.

Their moment ruined, Joshua left with his mother and followed her to the podium that had been erected in the middle of the garden.

Before them were all the members of the pack. Joshua stood behind his mother as she addressed the shifters, it was at times like this Joshua tuned out and imagined what life was like outside the wall of trees and mountains, where being a man was to be free, free to feel and act how he wanted without the females of his family looking down on him. He knew only a sliver of what life was like on the outside, he had been seventeen when he ventured out of Stillwater.

Taking with him nothing he had shifted into his wolf form, making his way over the mountains and through the river that separated Stillwater from the rest of society. He had stumbled upon a logging community and he had found shelter in a grove nearby.

Since he had brought no clothes with him, when he shifted back into his human form he had been forced to scurry around the lodges, catching glimpses of families watching TV, eating dinner together, and fathers playing with their sons as daughter's helped their mothers in the kitchen.

Joshua had found it strange that the men didn't do anything to help the household like cleaning and cooking, but maybe the rest of the world wasn't as strict as Stillwater. It had been a surreal experience sitting in the snow among the other humans.

Until his pack had found him. It had been a one-sided fight, one which saw him beaten to an inch of his life before being bundled back to Stillwater, that beating had been nothing compared to his mothers wrath. Joshua shuddered with the memory and he felt that itching sensation again.

"In four weeks we will have our annual summer mating ritual which I'm sure you'll know that Joshua will participate in." Naomi said, smiling as the unmated bitches cheered some even howling with delight.

"What!" Joshua yelled, snapping out of his reverie, his mother's words crashing over him like ice cold water. Everyone fell silent, an outburst like that was unacceptable especially if the one questioning the Alpha was male.

Naomi clenched her fist willing her inner wolf to stay calm, Joshua didn't mean to embarrass her like that, he usually said and did things outside the norm of a member of the Stillwater pack. She watched as he blushed furiously, the tip of his ears turning bright red. That was enough to keep her clam.

He was far more handsome than he let on and she knew that it was because he didn't want to draw attention to himself. He was the only one in the clan with such light blonde hair and his ice blue eyes were attractively clear against his dark colouring.

"What I meant to say was what great news." Joshua said quickly, ignoring Marcus's snickering.

He knew that the day would come when his mother would see him mated off, he just didn't know it would be so soon. He felt the walls around him close in until he felt like screaming for air.

----------------------------------------

Haven't written for Litererotica in quite a while. Note to all readers, this is a finished story so chapters will be up on a weekly basis. All reviews and suggestions are welcome, as always,

Much Love

Hornibunni xxx :D